Evaluation 7: Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Looking back at the magazine that I created for my preliminary task there are many different things that I changed in order for my magazine to look a lot better, I only included a lot more of the conventions that a magazine should truly include. 

When looking at my school magazine it doesn't look really bad however after creating my finial piece there are many things about the cover that I would change. 
The way in which the cover image has been taken is different to what is typically done on magazine covers, the image would have been a lot more effective if there was not squares on the phone as the image would have looked a lot clearer. However the image is a true representation of what occurs in school as we did not tell the two models we were going to take a picture of them. However you can see the mies-en-scene has not been though about as the image looks slightly messy with a bag on the right side and plugs in the background. If the image had been planned out more these things would have been changed. The school magazine was aimed a students so they are not going to want to read a magazine with masses of writing on however only using 3 headlines on the cover makes it look although the magazine has basically nothing inside it. We have also not made any reference to the models on the front and the input they may have inside the magazine. There are also two images on the right hand side that have been added but have no reason to be placed there as they have not been mentioned in the three cover lines that are on the cover. Many things on the cover have been missed off like the date, price and barcode. The cover looks more like a poster rather than a magazine. Due to using the same editing software 'Pixlr' for my finial magazine I understood how to use it a lot better and do many different things on it. However when creating my school magazine it was my first time using the software so I hadn't fully understood how to use the website, it also took a lot longer than it needed to in order to do the smallest things. 


From all of the background research that I had to do in order to create my magazine I had a full understand of what the house style of my magazine was going to be. However I had been told to create a school magazine and didn't know in great deal what the house style was, this meant that when picking things like the colour scheme I didn't have much knowledge of what had been used previously and what different things work. So I ended up using a colour scheme of red and white as these are the school colours. If I was to make any changes to my magazine now I was use the same style of image however take away the boxes that are being shown on the iPhone screen, I would also make a few changes to the mise en scene of the image. Many more of the typical magazine conventions also needed to be added like the date, price and barcode in order to make it more like a magazine rather than a poster. 

 From creating my school magazine to my music magazine my skills of using 'Pixlr' it didn't take me as long to do simple things and I understood how to change and add things a lot faster. My skills were also shown a lot more on my double page spread as I have letters under my writing that I had blurred out slightly placing the writing from my article on top. As I had done a lot more background research before starting to create my music magazine I had a full understand on the type of house style that I was going to be creating. So when choosing things like my colour scheme I was able to pick things that worked and had been used perviously. Hence why I went for the colour scheme of red, white and black as I had seen that this had been used in many different R and B magazines perviously so I knew that it worked and fitted the genre. Although I wanted to keep things simple for my music magazine I still used more than three cover lines in order to show what was going to be featured inside the magazine. I also addressed the models on the cover of my magazine, this time it is shown that they are the main feature of the magazine. I also used many of the typical magazine conventions, and didn't forget the simple features that need to be added to a magazine in order to make it a magazine like the date, price and barcode. 

One of the main factors that stands out about my contents page is the fact that the writing is red and so are the doors behind the writing making it pretty much impossible to be able to read the writing. The image on the contents page has followed the same theme as the cover as it is an action shot of students come out of school talking, the image again looks natural. The contents page does not include any numbers like a true contents page would. The position in which the writing has been placed hasn't been thought about also as it starts to go along the students in the image with looks very unprofessional and messy. The fact that the writing can not even seen due to the red doors behind it has tried to be avoided as the writing has been added towards the bottom of the door however due to the size and the font that has been used it is still very unclear to read. Again like the cover there are not many article headlines written down which leads the reader to think that there is not going to be many stories included in the magazine. 

Contrasting to the school magazine my music magazine contents page as a lot more story lines on it with page numbers also making it look more like a real magazine should. The writing it also a lot easier to read as the colour of the writing is white with some of the background black and some of it green, rather than white on white making it impossible to read. The layout in which everything was going to be was also thought about a lot more, like the way in which the word 'Contents' has been written down the side and where all of the article headlines have been position as they do not go across the models in a way that looks messy like had been down on the school magazine. 

Overall I feel although my music magazine looked a lot better and more like a magazine that the school magazine I had to create for my preliminary task. The images that were used on my music magazine looked a lot better ad they had been taken on a professional camera rather than a smart phone, they had also been edited. In order to meet the deadline for the preliminary task it was all a bit to rushed and there was not any attention to detail given hence why something's from the magazine were missed, and something's looked messy. 

Evaluation 6: What have you learnt about technologies in the process of creating this product?

Evaluation 5- How did you attract/address your audience?

When creating my magazine I had to ensure that I was keeping my target audience in mind at all times as the magazine needs to appeal to them as they were the purpose for the magazine being created. I ensure that everything that was being added to my magazine was going to appeal to my target audience and they would be interested in the stories being added. Certain genres use similar features on there covers in order to ensure that they are going to be attracting their target audience, for example its more than likely a pop magazine is going to have lots of different things on the cover. The colour scheme will be light colours and stereotypically the colour pink will be used as much possible, they will have the latest pop band or artist on the front also. The reason why this is done is due to the fact that the creators of the magazine know that is what there target audience want to see meaning they know that it is going to sell. However my magazine was going to use conventions that were opposite to this, I used a simple colour scheme of red white and black to keep things simple and not over powering however features that needed to be made more clear were put into red to attract the attention of readers more. Rather than adding as much to my cover as possible to ensure every artist that had been featured on the magazine were included on a picture, I simply listed the artists that were going to be featured in the magazine and why they were going to be included.

The first thing someone sees about your magazine is the cover, meaning as many selling features have to be used on the cover as possible. As I am targeting a large market I had to ensure that I was using features on the cover that would appeal to everyone. This is why I chose to keep everything as simple as possible and not over powering as 18 year old males are not going to be attracted to a cover that has multiple layers of text all covering each other. The main feature of the cover is the image of the models as it takes up the most space on the cover, which denotes that they are going to be the main feature of the magazine. For anyone walking past that is a fan of the band they would purchase the magazine instantly without looking at anything else on the cover. However I also included cover lines about other artists that are featured in the magazine which may lead to many other people purchasing the magazine, due to them being fans or interested about the artists included on the cover. I ensured that my models all had direct eye contact with the camera as that makes it seem although they have direct eye contact with someone walking past the cover which would draw there attention into the cover making them want to purchase it.

As I took a different approach to R and B not going for the typical factors of sex, drugs, and alcohol I ensured that I didn't include any of these factors on my cover. However I didn't want my magazine to look overly sophisticated, meaning that I didn't use what is known as the Queens English as brief amounts of slang have been used, which keeps things slightly informal.  I kept this in mind also when creating my double page spread also as it is informal and just sounds like a conversation which will be more engaging for the audience to read, it makes it easier to read meaning they wont get bored and carry on reading, this will also influence there intentions of purchasing the magazine on a monthly basis.  On my contents page I included articles that were about females also as the images as on my magazine cover it only featured males, so by including females in the articles it will meaning that the magazine will attract the attention of male readers also as I want my magazine to attract the attention of both genres. 

Creating the name of my magazine took my a long time however I came up with the name 'Urban Vibe' in the end. This links to the fact that R and B music links to Urban, so if someone heard the name they would understand what the genre of the magazine is and the types of people that are going to be featured in the magazine. Having a name that linked with music follows a typical convention of music magazines which means that it is going to increase sales as it is a convention that all music magazines follow so is going to work for my magazine. 

When choosing my fronts I didn't want to pick anything that was childish or looked like I was trying to attract the attention of children. For the main cover lines like 'Urban Vibe' and 'T.R.B are back' I used the font 'Bebas Kal' as it was very clear and east to read, it also looks very sophisticated. I used a similar font through out as I wanted to keep the same team running through out, and not constantly changing things.

Again with keeping everything as simple as possible I didn't want to add lists onto my contents page. I didn't feel although I needed to add images of every artists that I had mentioned was going to be included in my magazine as the are extremely popular people in the music industry to from just reading their names people would know who they are. I also used the name font of 'Bebas Kal' for the word contents in order to keep things the similar and not using to many font as that would lead to things looking slightly messy and over powering. 

Overall, inorder to attract and address my target audience I followed the typical themes that my target audience would be attracted to, like a simple layout, having popular R and B artists featured on the cover and mentioned in the cover lines. I ensured that my models gave the camera direct eye contact on the cover as this gains the attention of people walking past the magazine. I ensured that I didn't add anything that would be over powering to my cover as this isn't what my target audience would be attracted to, I kept everything as simplaitc as possible and kept the same things followed throughout, I also ensured that the language used was slightly informal as that made the reading of the magazine easier and more interesting.

Evaluation 4: Target Audience, how you found out what you believed to be your target audience

In order to find out who my target audience were going to be I looked at Vibe as my magazine is of a similar genre. From this I found the type of people that read the magazine, their age and the background that they come from. 

I feel like my target audience would be more mass rather than niche as R and B is a genre that is listened to my many different people, meaning that there is going to be larger amount of people that would be interested in the content of my magazine. Rather than a magazine which is like Ray Gun, this would have more of a niche audience as the magazine is so different as it challenges and develops many of the typical music magazine conventions. Meaning that a smaller audience would read it, as it would only appeal to a small group of people. 

The age range of my audience was large as the average age of vibe readeders was 16-34. However I wanted my magazine to appeal to younger people that were around the ages of 16/17 as I don't feel like there are any magazines for people of the age range at the moment. Magazines that are around for teenagers mainly of the pop genre, these types of magazines are aimed for 'fangirls' as they will be covered in topless artists or the latest bands. That will not attract the attention of teenage boys or girls that are 18/19. This is why I took my pictures in the way that I did as they will appeal to all teenagers not just fangirls. With the age range being so large its means I will be selling to a large audience causing to an increase in sales, as the magazine is aimed at many different people. The fact that the models on my magazine are of the age of 17/18 denotes the fact that what they are going to be talking about in the magazine may be relatable, as although they are famous they would have the same attitudes to things in life.

The gender of my magazine is going to be both female and male. Vibe had 50.5% male readers and 49.5% were female, meaning that there are slightly more male readers than female. In order to keep my magazine appealing to both genres I ensured that I kept everything natural, there was nothing on my magazine that would appeal to only one sex. When magazines are appealing to one sex the colour scheme and all of the images will all be aimed towards either girls or boys. However I ensured that I didn't do this by keeping the colour schemes of my magazine natural with the colours red, white and black used throughout. 

My magazine is going to be sold in Britain as many different people from all different ethnicities, live in the country meaning that it is going to be able to be purchased by a large amount group of different ethnicities. However one of the main ethnicities that would be reading my magazine is black/ african. This is due the genre of music that I have based my magazine on and the other artists that are also featured inside the magazine. as they are all of the same ethnicity. When looking at who read Vibe there was 75% of African American people reading it meaning the statists would be the same for my magazine, this also denotes the fact that my magazine will have a clear dominant ethnicity reading it. 

As my magazine is based on R and B music the type of people that are going to read my magazine are going to lead a very different lifestyle to someone that is interested in pop music. People that listen to R and B are stereotyped to be into drug, drink and sex although this may be true in some cases a lot of the time it s far from the truth. As my magazine includes an audience of 16-34 year olds many of them may still be in education however when on nights out they may go to different clubs to someone that listens to pop music as they will not have the same taste in music, the ways in which people will be dancing and dressed with also be different. Although not everyone that will be reading the magazine will meet the characteristics of the stereotypes some people do. This is due to people like Wiz Khlaifa making it extremely clear through the music that he produces that smoking weed is something he does on a regular basis, influencing the people listening to him music to do the same. 

As my magazine has such a large target audience there isn't going to be just one socio-economic group. I feel like my readers that are no longer in full time education will be part of a working class background meaning they are comfortable with the jobs they have and live a good lifestyle. Due to the way my magazine is set out and the edits that have I have used I don't feel as though I am reaching out to one social-economical group. So I don't feel although my magazine is only reaching out to one social-economical group, meaning that no matter what a persons background or the amount of money they are earning my magazine is still going to appeal to them.

Evaluation 3- What media institution might distribute your magazine and why?

Evaluation 2- How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Evaluation new from RKaur12

Evaluation 1- In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Cover: 

My cover couldn't look extremely similar to many other R and B magazines that are around today as I challenged the convention of having a whole image fit the main over page. Rather than doing this I took my picture landscape which then meant that I added a boarder to the top and bottom of my image. Where as many R and B magazines do not use borders and just have the one main image covering the whole page. Although I have challenged the convention of having a boarder around the image I still wanted my magazine to have many of the typical conventions of R and B magazines as my target audience is going to be a mass audience rather than a niche target audience which is what unconventional music magazines will be targeting. Although I have challenged the convention of not having a main cover image that fits the whole page, I did follow the other typical conventions of R and B magazines. I have used the billboard magazine below to give examples are the ways in which my music magazine has used the conventions of a real media product. 

                               

The magazine fits in to my house style meaning that I am going to be gaining the attention of the correct target audience, the fact that these conventions have used on this magazine and have been successful means that if I follow some of the same conventions my magazine will be successful also. The way in which I've added my cover lines onto my cover is the similar to those on the Billboard cover as they have both been added to the left of the cover, however I also challenged this convention in order to make my magazine more simple. I added all of my conventions in one colour rather than having them in white, I also didn't add as many as I didn't want to make the section look messy in a way, as I would have been trying to add more information that I had space for. A convention from the Billboard cover that I followed was the main cover line. I wrote 'T.R.B' followed by a quotation that has come from the content of the magazine as they have done with 'Beyonce' and a quote that has been taken from the magazine. Again I wanted to keep everything as simple as possible, not adding anything under the quote or around it apart from the barcode. The way in which the cover lines have been set out clearly show what the main stories inside the magazine are going to be, I've also added a few important artists that are going to be featured inside the magazine below. 

I followed the conventions with the way the text has been added to the magazine cover however the convention that I developed and challenged was having the main image cover the whole page, instead I took my picture in a landscape position and added a boarder to it. I feel like doing this made the image stand out more as it causes it to be positioned directly in the middle of the page rather than covering the whole page. 

Contents Page: 

 

I used this contents page from Vibe as inspiration for the construction of my contents pace. One of the main conventions that have been challenged is the fact my contents page is going to be on two pages hence why it is still landscape, I have challenged the convention from the original vibe contents page as theres is portrait.  I used many similar ideas however made slight developments to the conventions that were being used, for example the word contents I moves the letters TS to the left as it would not work if the letters were user NT like done in the Vibe magazine as it would fade into one of the models tops, which would then prevent it from being as clear as it can. In order to keep to the house style I have used the same colour scheme of red, white and black as this is used in the Vibe contents page with a grey colour added also. Another convention that I followed like in the Vibe contents page is the one in which features was used in order to show what the magazine was going to contain. However I did not continue down to add the fashion section to my magazine like Vibe did. I felt like the writing on the Vibe contents page was hard to read so I made my clearer by using a different front, I also made it bigger,making it easier to read. I was still keeping the idea of sophisticated R and B in mind keeping everything as minimal as possible. I didn't add anything to the background of my image like Vibe did with the V as I liked my mise-en-scene so didn't want it to be covered by anything else. My target audience is people that are aged 16-34 I don't need to any many different brightly coloured things and clutter the page, as that is not what my audience are going to be looking for. My target audience is large meaning that I have to ensure that I am appealing to everyone in my target audience. I have used three males on the image however they aren't topless or posing in ways that would attract teenage girls more than the male audience however I want to gain the attention of both genders. Ive used the same edit on my picture of I did on the front cover, keeping the house style the same throughout.

My contents page challenges the convention of having the contents page portrait has mine is landscape which allows the full image to be shown without anything having to be cut. It also means that I could have my text a lot larger than they had on the vide contents page and more detail could be added as I had more space without it looking like I've tried to add too much information into a small space. 

Double Page spread:

For my DPS I used this edition of Q magazine as inspiration for my double page spread. Although Q isn't an R and B magazine Jay Z fits into the Genre of R and B meaning that people from my target audience would have read the magazine, so using the same format and ideas would still work. On the left Q used a different edit to their picture however I wanted to use the same edit that I had used on both my cover page and contents page, as this edit keeps to the idea of intelligent R and B, it also fits my house style. Q added information onto the image however I choose to continue keeping things simple by just adding the simple heading at the top of the image, clearly stating what the topic of the article is going to be about. As I added the letters T.R.B behind the writing I only made them faded in order to make it easier to read the writing that is on top of them. I followed the same convention to Q magazine as the layout of the magazine is simple however has everything included that it needs. I wanted to make it a lot clearer and a central point of the DPS who the main feature was however as Jay Z is so known it doesn't need to be outlines as much hence why there is a small heading with his name on above. In order to keep the house style the same I kept the font of the word 'contents' and 'T.R.B are back' the same. Rather than adding anymore text to my image I have a small section on the right that is in bold, rather than placing it onto the image. 

Out of my three products my double page spread follows the typical conventions of R and B music magazines the most as there has not been many conventions that have been challenged and developed like I had done on the cover and contents page. 

Double Page Spread Progression

 In order to get my double page spread to the way in which I wanted it I tried many different things, as seen my the images to the side. I looked at many different magazine styles for inspiration. The main problem that occurred when putting the text onto the image was not being able to read it. I added a white boarder to the image however it did not look like a magazine. I then changed the way in which I was editing the spread which is then how I come to my final version.

 

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Contents Page Progression

 Here are the different stages in which leaded me to get my final Contents Page. I started with very few stories that were going to be in the magazine. The word contents was very small, it needed to be one of the main things on the page that stood out however wasn't due to the font and the size of the text. I then made changes to these two factors and re arranged the order in which I placed the letters of Contents. One more change that I made was adding many more stories that would be featured in the magazine. 

Contents Page

I have completed my Contents page and made a few changed from 1st draft keeping the Vibe contents page in mind. 

Double Page changes

From my previous post I added some drafts of my double page spread, one of the main issues was the fact that the writing could not be read. In order to over come this I have added a white box into the image that I have then placed the writing on top of which has made it a lot easier to read. There is a paragraph which is like a summary of what the article is about at the bottom of the image which again is hard to read, in order to over come this I might take some of the information out that is on the left hand side or add other white box onto the image.